You seem to be under the mistaken impression that businesses always do what is in their best interest. Sure, most companies try their best to maximize profit, but they also make critical blunders over and over again. My company, for example, spent a ton of money on rent to own equipment, because the bean counters didn't want to approve a bigger, cheaper purchase.

Maybe having this DRM last time helped them, but I sincerely doubt it. I would suspect that the same managers that pushed it last time are pushing it this time. They just for some reason think it will work better on the second time around.

There is also another factor that is not mentioned anywhere here: maintenance. If you take a plane fresh off the line it is going to be much more robust than something with tens or hundreds of thousands of miles on it. Then take into account airlines trying to cut costs, and maintenance on EMI critical parts may not be up to what is needed.

So A plane might not be susceptible - but as these anecdotes are implying(as well as my experience in EMC engineering) shows that planes can be susceptible.

I doubt it will cause major issues - as the pilot will react to the event and ask for PEDs to be shut down. My only concern would be during take off and landing.

Yes, you are. Boeing is anal about EMC. They have detailed requirements for test plans and nothing is going on the plane until it has passed at minimum a safety of flight test. Anything that will affect flight performance is going to be tested for susceptibility, and not just emissions.

Power line frequency is significantly less of a problem. Most electronics are not going to be affected by anything at those frequencies because of the huge wavelength. I've seen equipment that has no issue with a 30 kV/m test at 60 Hz, but will have failures at 30 V/m in the 10-100 MHz range.

That said, I am surprised something like this made it through. Having worked with engineers from both of these companies, this should have been caught earlier. My best guess is that they did not test specifically at 2.4 GHz because at the time it was designed, wireless was not a concern.

Geez, who wrote this summary? It reads like a corporate shill trying to drum up business.

I would like to see more literature like this, but it is so often terribly done. Wicked was really bad. It's like he wrote a novel, then in the last 50 pages had to ignore the entire book up to that point just to fit it with the previous work. The Broadway show was much more enjoyable.

Nice list, but vacuum tubes are still in use. They're less common, but very much in use. I would add the abacus and sounding line to the list. While a handful of people worldwide may still use them, they have been replaced by calculators and electronic depth finders, respectively.

How about the right against improper search and seizure? It is performing a search of your person every time you enter your vehicle, and seizing your property from being used.You see to be ok with the government searching you every time you get into your car. That's bullshit. Why do you think the government should have that ability? Are you so concerned with your safety that you are willing to give up personal freedoms? This also is ripe for a slippery slope. If not alcohol, why not marijuana, meth, or coke? How about gunpowder residue? What happens when your friendly, only thinking of safety, federal government decides that stopping your car isn't enough? With the ubiquity of wireless devices, it could easily report you to your local police station. Attempted to drive drunk? You're losing your license. How good are these sensors? Are they going to kill my car at .08? Has it been tested against breathalyzer data? How does it actually measure impairment? What happens when it breaks, like so many things do on modern cars? Congratulations, you now have a $20,000 paperweight until you can get a tow truck.

We do not test cellphone interference for planes. The primary reason being that the test standards for commercial aircraft do not require it. Plane manufacturers - Airbus, Boeing, Bombardier, etc. have their own requirements, but I have not seen any that specifically cover cell phone frequencies or modulations. It is my belief that they consider the HIRF testing with pulse modulation to be covering that threat. That said, automotive standards for Europe require testing to GSM frequencies and modultion.

You're falling into the same trap many here are - conflating the threat from different sources and declaring that because A doesn't cause failures, B won't either. I work in this industry, and we do tests like this every day, on equipment for commercial and military aircraft. If all they need is to be immune to lightning, why are there dozens of tests related to EMI? Commercial aircraft average being struck by lightning once a year. It is a significant concern, and all the electronics(even the coffee makers) are tested to make sure they do not become damaged from the induced currents and voltages. This protection is significantly different from the protection designed to prevent radiated EM fields. The radiated portions of testing are more centered on interference from radar or general EMI(unmodulated or square wave).

The question is - what has been left out? Does it have airbags and rated seat belts? A radio? Crumple zones and all that required by the feds. What about reliability testing? EMC, environmental, etc. I like to see advancements like this. I don't like the head in the clouds reporting saying it's a miracle.

Sweet! I am totally going to 'admit' that I have a 12" penis. Someone please report me to the Swedish bikini team.

Re: Defending the inept The idea is not the legal action, but the grievances and myriad other difficulties in removing any union employee. Most union bosses don't want a single union guy let go, and it doesn't matter what his performance looks like. The classic example is the NY teacher's union. An expose a few years ago showed that there are teachers that are paid to sit in a room all day because they can't be allowed near children. Yet they remain on the payroll because of the extremely laborious process to fire anyone. Similar situations happen in other industries as well. The union had the good intent to prevent employers from firing union organizers or experienced people that are paid highly. Instead it turned into this - once you're in the union, we only care about you paying dues and staying in the union.

Have you played Age of Mythology? The levels were more like:

• Easy: My cat could beat this
• Normal: You would have a hard time losing, unless outnumbered 3:1 or worse.
• Hard: You lose. The only way to win is to pair an AI teammate with you, and outnumber the enemy AI essentially having the AI do battle, with you added as a little bonus.

Yeah, except that won't neccessarily fix the problem. I got caught by a drive-by downloader on my work laptop, where I do not have admin priviledges. I didn't click on anything, or agree to download anything. I merely visited a popular webcomic - then bam, install script trying to give me AntiVirusPro2010 or something along those lines. I got rid of it easily enough with MalWareBytes, but I couldn't even use safe mode to run HiJack this because I have no admin privileges.